MICHAEL C. MOORE | KITSAP A&E
Renfield (Samuel Elston) narrates the story of "Dracula" from his cell in the loony bin.

Paradise’s ‘Dracula:’ There will be blood

GIG HARBOR — Jeff Richards says many screen and stage adaptations of Bram Stoker’s novel “Dracula” have been either talky, or over-the-top flashy.

The one the Paradise Theatre director has found for his company’s season-opening production, written by playwright Steven Dietz, is a little bit of both, but not too much of either.

“What Dietz has done has been to find a really great place in the middle,” says Richards, an avowed horror nut who nonetheless is directing a version — any version — of “Dracula” for the first time. “There’s some scares, there’s exposition, there’s some blood ...”

Of all the things the different previous “Draculas” have been, from sullen to silly, from boring to broad, Richards is pretty sure of one thing his production won’t be.

“This won’t be dull,” he said.

Everyone, of course, knows the rudiments of “Dracula,” literature’s most famous stalker. The age-old vampire takes up residence in a clammy old English abbey and begins chomping on the neighbors’ necks, prompting a manhunt — er, vamphunt — conducted by Dr. Abraham Van Helsing and his deputees.

“Dietz’s script is very faithful to the novel,” says Richards. “He keeps all the original concepts and characters pretty intact, and the whole concept of it being a battle between good and evil. He throws in some subtle humor, too. It’s the best (stage) version I’ve ever read.”

Dietz’s “Dracula” never made it to Broadway, but has been so frequently produced by regional and community companies that the playwright lists it among his most financially successful works.

Dietz uses Renfield, the lunatic who becomes Dracula’s lackey, as a narrator, and also to provide bits of comedy amid the suspense. Richards cast Sam Elston, a regular in Paradise productions, in that role, and his father, Jon, as Dr. Seward, the one of Lucy Westenra’s three suitors who survived Dietz’s adaptation.

Drac himself is played by Ian Lamberton, who’s played a number of off-kilter roles in Paradise productions, including “the best Ruckly (the invective-spewing “chronic” in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”)” Richards says he’s ever seen. Another Paradise regular, John Mobus, plays Jonathan Harker.

The rest of the cast is new to the Gig Harbor stage. The two objects of Dracula’s desire are Kristen Blegen-Bouyer (as Lucy) and Jenna McRill as Mina, who is Harker’s intended. Kevin McStay, new to the stage but touted by Richards as “a great natural actor,” takes the Van Helsing role.

Paradise annually stages a fund-raising haunted house in October, and Richards says some of the bells and whistles from that frightfest in his set.

“Yeah, we’ve stolen stuff from the haunted house, and we’ve made sure we’ve got the right music,” says Richards, who points out that Dietz’s script notes call for “a really good sound system,” and that he had special music composed for the original production (Richards will use other music, composed for a later mounting, at Paradise). “There are many scenes where the script indicates that music is used, and there are, like, 80 sound effects.”

And blood. Dietz also made it clear that companies doing the play shouldn’t scrimp on the fake blood, a stipulation that costumers hate to see, but horror audiences love.